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Thursday, 23 October 2014

Rush to get Ebola virus cure is because it has struck at the heart of America

BY MAKAU MUTUA

Rush to get Ebola virus cure is because
it has struck at the heart of America By Makau Mutua Updated Sunday,
October 19th 2014 at 00:00 GMT +3 Share this story:

In the mind of
the West, the “centre” of global civilisation, Africa remains the
Dark Continent. It conjures up images of a place writhing in pain.
It’s mysterious, dangerous, and full of man-eating pathogens. The
most fatal bugs originate there. That’s what they said about Aids.
It supposedly came from deep in the Congo jungle. That’s what they
said about Ebola, the virus ravaging Liberia, Guinea and Sierra
Leone. But Ebola has made it to America, and the country is in full
panic. Predictions are that at its epicenter in West Africa, the
Ebola virus could fell hundreds of thousands by year’s end. Even
so, can it truly be said that Ebola is an African disease? There’s
a tendency in the West to name dangerous pathogens by their African
origin. Ebola is obviously one such case. So is Chikungunya, another
virus which manifests itself with Ebola-like symptoms, though it’s
not as deadly. Then there’s the West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne
virus that causes acute fever. These viruses reinforce the idea that
Africa is Ground Zero — or the index continent — for explosive
diseases. Picture these images of Africa — teeming impoverished
urban slums, rural jungles crawling with unknown creatures, and hot
deserts which incubate deadly killer flying objects. Hollywood has
seared these images in the mind of the West. The African himself —
the human person — is almost depicted as a virus in the Western
mind. It’s in this context that one must understand America’s
fear of Ebola. America’s encounter with the disease was with Dr
Kent Brantley, the American doctor who contracted the disease while
caring for Ebola patients in Liberia. He was transported from Liberia
to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta in a specially equipped
plane. The protocols used to handle him — with healthcare workers
dressed in space suits — helped to deepen the public fear of the
virus. In a sense, I thought the latent message was that touching him
and his diseased body would’ve been akin to touching sick Africa.
The image further alienated Africa from America. It said this —
very bad things, like killer pathogens, come out of Africa. Nancy
Writebol, an aid worker similarly stricken by Ebola in Liberia, was
transported to the US using the same stringent protocols. She was
treated at Emory University Hospital and like Dr Brantley has made a
full recovery. The degree of care and concern shown for these two
Americans was appropriate and expected. Huge expenses were deployed
by both the government and private institutions to care for them.
That is as it should be. But one could be forgiven for thinking that
Dr Brantley and Ms Writebol were, unlike their African Ebola victims,
special patients. Those stricken by Ebola in West Africa haven’t
received the same degree of care and concern. We must ask why. US
President Barack Obama is the only Western leader who has responded
to the Ebola crisis in West Africa with urgency. And even he was a
little late in realising just how serious the pandemic was. Other
wealthy countries in Asia and Europe have at best been timid. One
can’t help but think that if Ebola had first broken out in Europe
or America, leaders of leading industrial democracies would have been
running around with their hair on fire. They would have moved heaven
and earth to find a cure or a vaccine. But African lives are
expendable — that’s why it’s taken so long to respond.
Unfortunately, there’s a racialised hierarchy of human beings in
the world. See also: Da Gama Rose's links to the rich and mighty
Knock me out if you don’t believe that the feverish response to
Ebola now isn’t to save African lives, but to prevent it from
reaching the “civilised West.” Containing, or eradicating, the
Ebola virus in West Africa isn’t about the plight of Africans, but
the fear the disease could strike Western metropoles with devastating
results. Imagine an Ebola pandemic in New York or London. It’s
totally unthinkable. That’s why the West must hurry up and stop the
deadly disease in West Africa. In this script, Africa is an
afterthought, not the real story. I wish I was wrong. This is why I
believe that Ebola has been racialised although the virus doesn’t
have an African human genetic fingerprint. The cabining of diseases
and treating them in compartments segregated by identity isn’t new.
Diseases that strike women are less likely to attract research and
investment in a cure or a vaccine. Diseases that afflict the tropics
are similarly overlooked. Malaria is a case in point. Why hasn’t a
vaccine been developed for one of the deadliest diseases on the
planet? But what policy-makers in wealthy states and powerful
pharmaceutical industries must realise is that diseases like Ebola
are not genetic to a race of people. Let’s deracialise Ebola.